8 Success Lessons from Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an incredibly successful talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist.

As she is worth billions of dollars after creating her own very successful business whilst making other people’s lives better, her advice to other entrepreneurs looking to do the same can be very useful.

Oprah Winfrey’s Success Lessons

Interpreted from various inspirational quotes of Oprah’s, the below are 8 success lessons from Oprah Winfrey that any aspiring entrepreneurs should listen to. But they can also be applied to anything you do in life.

1. Go With Your Gut Instinct

Your gut instinct isn’t perhaps always the correct one.

Sometimes after re-thinking a situation, you have more time to think and make a better choice. Although, it’s said that your gut instinct on something is normally the right one, or at least the one you won’t have any regrets about.

Oprah Winfrey has said that she always trusted her gut instinct with any of the major changes in her life, including her T.V show. It’s when you doubt your gut and being to start questioning it with others, that you often end up going against your gut and making the wrong choice.

In business it’s very important that you make the right decisions, and having a little faith in yourself and your gut might make the differences you need.

“Your gut is your inner compass. Whenever you have to consult with other people for an answer, you’re headed in the wrong direction.” – Oprah Winfrey

2. Focus on Helping Others

Far too many businesses are only in it for themselves and are not really interested in helping others or satisfying any of their needs. Oprah set out to help others as well as build a profitable business for herself, and by setting out to help others, she benefited herself.

It’s important to focus on the needs of others, and in particular in business, your potential customers. Products that solve a problem or need that others have are far more popular for obvious reasons, in comparison to those that they may just want.

“The surest way to bring goodness to yourself is to make it your intention to do good for somebody else.” – Oprah Winfrey

3. Money Should Not Be Your Priority

Success is much more likely to come your way if you’re in it for the right reasons, and money is not one of them.

The right reason should be because you love what you are doing, because in the end your ultimately happy with how your spending the time you have. Any money that comes from it is just a huge bonus.

To become wealthy is one of the reasons why most people start a business, and that’s still a valid reason to start one, but it shouldn’t be the only reason why you’re doing it.

The love and passion for something motivates people a lot more than money could. And so it’s easier to stick with something you love for long periods, than something you hate but that pays a lot.

“You know you are on the road to success if you would do your job, and not be paid for it.” – Oprah Winfrey

4. Learn How to Turn Negatives to Positives

There’s no escaping negative aspects in life sometimes.

You’re likely to experience some sort of failure if you’re trying to achieve something fairly difficult. Building a business is incredibly hard work and I’d be surprised if you nailed everything perfectly first time.

You need to be able to turn these negative issues into positives. In other words you need to be able to take your failures or mistakes and learn what you can from. In order to stop them from happening again.

Failure is still experience and should be thought of as getting closer to your dreams in the long run, instead of having to start from scratch.

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey

5. Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy

If you’re expecting it to be easy, it won’t be. Your dreams are dreams for a reason.

It’s the ultimate peak you want to climb to in your lifetime; and it’s likely that at the moment of deciding exactly what you want in life, you were fairly far away from achieving that vision.

The point is that if you expect to become successful in your chosen area, you can’t give up just because you don’t get anywhere within a few months. And you can’t skate by doing the bare minimum.

Work your ass off!

“Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.” – Oprah Winfrey

6. Surround Yourself with Those you Wish to be Like

It’s a true fact that the individuals you spend the most amount of time with, you become like. You start to think like them and do the same things as them, since you’re hanging out with them.

So if their habits, thoughts and weekly activities are destructive to what you’re trying to achieve you will struggle.

Go out and meet new people who have the same goals as you. They’re the ones working hard and trying to adopt the same productive habits you have. So you will benefit greatly from spending your time with them.

“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.” – Oprah Winfrey

7. It Starts with the Belief

Almost everyone who’s ever been successful decided at some point that they were just not destined for the average life. They had the belief that the world had something of a much higher power planned for them.

You have to belief that you too can achieve greatness and that you will be able to live your dreams out one day. The belief in something goes a long way when you’re putting all your effort into something.

It definitely makes the difference between whether you’re a success or a failure.

“I always knew I was destined for greatness.” – Oprah Winfrey

8. Be Proud to Be Yourself

Many people adopt these thoughts that they can’t do something because of how they look, their personality or their voice, so they try to be something they’re not. Which is where things start to go wrong.

There is nothing wrong with who you are. The idea that you look like or come across in a certain negative way to people isn’t true.

Be proud to be yourself and people will begin to recognize you for who you actually are, and that’s how you start to make a proper name for yourself and who you are. It’s very easy to see through all the fakes, and it lowers everyone’s trust in them. Just be yourself!

“I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I’ve become. If I had, I’d have done it a lot earlier.” – Oprah Winfrey

Summary

Here’s a recap on Oprah Winfrey’s success lessons:

Go with your gut instinct

Focus on helping others

Money should not be your priority

Learn how to turn negatives into positives

Nothing worth having comes easy

Surround yourself with people you wish to be like

It starts with the belief

Be proud to be yourself

How many of Oprah Winfrey’s success lessons did you agree with? Leave a comment below.

Dan Western is the founder of Wealthy Gorilla. Dan is a young ambitious guy who has been researching self-development for the past two years and is now off travelling the world. His mission is to inspire others to live their dreams and be the person to whom they say; "Because of you, I never gave up." Join Wealthy Gorilla on Facebook.